


Give Darkness an Inch

by orphan_account



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Muteness, Nightmares, PTSD, Permanent Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-15
Updated: 2013-03-15
Packaged: 2017-12-05 09:02:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/721292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes life can be bought back at a certain price. (Or: following the Battle of the Five Armies, Kili is left with a throat injury that renders him unable to speak.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Give Darkness an Inch

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, short fill for a Hobbit kink meme prompt.

They come late at night, Balin with a grave look about him and Ori fidgety as ever these days. Fili hopes it’s not about another paper that needs signing, some other minor task that cannot be carried out without the seal Thorin entrusted to his nephew through the duration of his recovery. Kingliness, Fili is beginning to discover, isn’t made of sitting on a high throne and imparting justice, but of late hours and endless stacks of paper that need reading and approving and signing and sealing so that the world may continue to turn. 

But Balin says, ‘It’s your brother,’ and just like that, kingliness is put aside. 

Fili runs through the winding corridors with the old dwarf struggling to keep up and Ori stammering an explanation. Kili is alright, he says. It’s just that, well, Thorin is with him now, and Fili had better come too. 

His brother’s chamber has the hot, heavy air of a space that has been closed off for too long. The darkness is broken only by the lantern Thorin brought with him, and a torch that Dwalin holds, hovering in the doorway. 

‘What happened?’ Fili asks. The stuttering of his heart is slowing little by little, now that he’s taken in the scene and seen that Thorin is not so much panicked as worried and deeply tired. His uncle sits on the edge of Kili’s bed, one hand on his youngest nephew’s shoulder, thumb moving slowly in an awkward caress. Kili isn’t looking at him. He has his knees drawn up to his chest, head resting against them and fingers tangled in his hair. 

‘It must have been a nightmare,’ Thorin says. ‘And since he cannot call for help...’

Fili nods, sitting down on the bed when his uncle moves away to make room. 

‘Kili,’ he says, very gently. His brother doesn’t react, but Fili thinks he sees a slight lessening of the tension in his shoulders. 

‘I’ll stay,’ he tells the others. And to Thorin: ‘You need to rest as well. I’ll call you if anything happens.’

It’s only after they’ve all left the room that Kili can be coaxed out of his miserable huddle. Fili knows why, he understands. His brother hates the way their companions look at him now, and least of all he tolerates Thorin’s pitying glances, his awkward attempts at comfort. Fili knows him well enough not to wear his sympathy out in the open, and so it’s easier between them.

And so Kili lets his brother wipe the tears from his face and check the bandages around his neck. They are clean. The wound has not broken open again, so Fili allows himself to relax a little after that. However bad it must have been, Kili ended up more frightened than hurt, and that is something he can deal with. 

‘It’s alright,’ he says. ‘There's no shame in nightmares.’

Fili has them too - about the battle, he says, but he never takes it further. Those nightmares are made up of claws tangled in his brother’s hair forcing his head back, of the red sheen that comes in the blade’s wake and a mountain of corpses that keeps Fili from reaching him before he chokes on his own blood. 

You were dead then, Fili thinks sometimes. In the blink of an eye the world shifted, and you were dead. 

He has learned in the meantime that life can be bought back at a certain price. Kili has lost his voice and has become self-conscious about every sound he makes, unwittingly, out of habit. He starts to speak sometimes and starts to laugh, only to become embarrassed by the way it turns into a strangled cough. He cannot yet eat as before or, more often than not, sleep without the aid of Oin’s herbs. He must teach himself to be quiet and cautious, which is the same as teaching himself not to be Kili. 

There is no shame in nightmares, but there is heartbreak enough.

When he finally draws the blankets over them both, with Kili nestled against his side, Fili remembers that they have not shared a bed since they were boys, a while before their people settled in the Blue Mountains. It’s an old, comforting sort of intimacy that he wishes now they had rediscovered in better circumstances. Back then Kili used to be restless and demand bedtime stories. Now he is miserable and exhausted and mouths ‘Sorry’ when his brother draws him close. 

Hush, Fili says, pressing a kiss against his temple.

He sleeps here every night after that and leaves Thorin to his seal and his kingliness.


End file.
